Deadline (task field)

Data Type     Date

Entry Type     Entered

Description     The Deadline field shows the date you enter as a deadline for the task. A deadline is a target date indicating when you want a task to be completed. If the deadline date passes and the task is not completed, Project displays an indicator. A deadline is also shown as an arrow in the Gantt Chart view.

Best Uses     Apply a deadline to a task when you want to track a deadline for a specific task but don't want to lock your schedule by setting an inflexible constraint such as Must Finish On or Finish No Later Than. Such constraints affect scheduling while the Deadline field simply causes an indicator to show if a task has not been completed by its deadline. Add the Deadline field to a task sheet when you want to enter, view, or change the deadlines of tasks in your project. You can also use the Deadline field for sorting, filtering, and grouping by deadline date.

Example     Certain tasks in your project should finish by specific target dates. However, you don't want these dates to actually affect how Project schedules the tasks; you just want to be alerted if the tasks are not completed by these dates. Add the Deadline field to the Entry table of the Gantt Chart view, and set the deadline dates for these tasks.

Remarks     While setting a deadline does not generate scheduling error messages like date constraints can, deadlines can affect how Total Slack is calculated.

You can also enter a task deadline in the Task Information dialog box.

If you do want Project to schedule tasks according to a specific finish date, apply either a Finish No Later Than, Finish No Earlier Than, or Must Finish On constraint. You also set task constraints in the Task Information dialog box.